Forgetful Life
by abrynne
Summary: Another Alice Crown/Tenth Doctor adventure! Alice dreams of a man, a great man. A friend. They have adventures together. But the dreams aren't real. Her life as a patient in the hospital in the Sultra system, that's what's real. Isn't it?
1. Chapter 1

Note:  
It's been a long while, but this concept for this story, in _this_ universe has been in my head for a very long time. I thought I'd try my hand at some fun fan fiction again anyway. :) Enjoy!  
* * *

"How are you feeling this morning?"

"I'm fine, I think."

"You think?" the pen in his hand clicked.

"I had another dream last night."

"Tell me."

"Alice," he tried again. "Look at me."

The girl named Alice, who had allowed her eyes to drift towards the window turned her gaze back onto the man in the white coat.

"Tell me about your dream," he said.

"I was on Earth," Alice said.

"Earth?"

"The planet I'm from," Alice explained.

A patient smile crossed his lips, but he shook his head. "Now you know that's not true, Alice."

No answer.

"Remember how we figured that out before? You're from the last human colony on Sultra Five, in the Sultra system right where we are now," his voice was kind, but it didn't stop her feeling as though she were being talked down to.

"Binary stars," Alice muttered.

"That's right. The Sultra system's source of solar energy are the binary stars, Donna One and Klove," he explained in his kind voice.  
* * *

_"Sultra five is - well it's lighter than most planets. The core isn't as solid as the Earth's," he explained, as he walked around the console, switching around controls._

_"So the gravity won't be as strong?" I guessed._

_"Exactly, well done," he smiled from around the power chamber. "It'll take some getting used to, but you have got to see some of the sports they play there because of the low gravity."_

_"Quidditch?" I guessed again._

_He laughed that squeaky laugh that most definitely meant that he was excited, so I was excited too.  
* * *_

"Light gravity," Alice muttered, pulling the cuffs of her sleeves over her hands. It was cold in that room.

"Right again, Alice," he smiled. "We have a lighter gravity field than most planets, which is why we have the atmospheric shield. Do you remember now? We talked all about this a couple days ago."

"I remember," Alice said, thinking of the boring session they had together two days before.

"Tell me more about this dream of yours," he said, getting back on topic.

Alice sighed, closing up her sleeves from the inside with her fingers, making it pucker on the outside. "If it's not real then what does it matter anyway?"

"It still might be important," he said simply.

Alice sighed irritably, and thought back on the unusually long dream she had the night before. "I was on Earth."

"What does Earth look like?"

"It's only got one sun and one moon. A blue sky, and blue oceans that reflect the sky. There are green forests that go for miles, and mountains covered in snow, that go further."

"It definitely sounds like a dream world, doesn't it?" he said with a small chuckle. "Perfectly ideal."

"Yeah, I guess it does," Alice said vaguely.

"What were you doing there?" he asked.

"I was there for a visit," Alice said. "I was traveling with him again."

"The same man?"

"Yes."

The man in the white coat frowned a little, and made another note with his clicky pen. "This man you continue to see in your dreams. What does he look like?"

Alice paused in her fiddling with her sleeves, her eyes finally meeting those of her interviewer. "I don't remember," she lied.

"Nothing about him at all?"

"He - well, he's tall, probably," she said. "It's all pretty fuzzy now. Faded."  
* * *

_"Even though it's in a binary star system, Sultra Five's orbit is such that the entire planet remains rather cold for most of the year. It's farther away from its suns than the Earth is," he thought for a moment as he paused. "So, you could say that the sports are mostly winter ones."_

_"Awesome," I said with a giggle. "Snowball fights!"_

_I'd been traveling with the Doctor for long enough by then that his genuine curiosity and excitement was rubbing off on me. I remember feeling rather giddy while he described the planet, leaping all around the central console of the TARDIS, his long, gangly limbs flying about as they always did.  
* * *_

"I find that very odd," he frowned, dusting some lint off of his white coat. "You can remember this fictional planet in detail, yet you cannot tell me what the man you travel with in your dreams looks like."

Alice shivered, and did not miss the small accusing tone in his voice. He seemed blatantly disappointed at her refusal to describe the companion in her dreams. What does it matter though? They were only dreams - dreams of fictional things, no less.

She shrugged in response, "I don't know what else to tell you."

The pen clicked again. He was always clicking that damned pen. One of these days, he'd click it too many times in front of her, and then she'd snap. He'd end up leaving with the clicky pen embedded in his neck. One of these days...

"All right, let's move on," he said. "What were you doing with your friend on Earth?

Alice genuinely thought on it for a moment. "We were visiting a place. I can't remember where. There were... lots of different colors, all around."

"Colors in the sky, on the ground?"

"All over," Alice said vaguely. "We were walking through them. And there were smells that matched the colors."  
* * *

_"Literally "the flower people" some would say," he said after the TARDIS landed. _

_"All they do is plant and grow flowers?" I asked, intrigued. _

_"Basically," he replied. "They have naturally regenerative soil, so the nutrients needed for planting never run out. And there's regular rainfall, so there's always water."_

_"What do they eat?"_

_"Flowers."_

_"Yum," I said sarcastically. _

_"These aren't your typical flowers, Alice," he said with a grin. "You have to see them to really understand what I mean. Flerida has some of the most unique flavors in the universe."_

_"Flerida?" I said disbelievingly. "The name of the planet is Flerida?"_

_"Yeah, what?"_

_I shook my head and began to laugh.  
* * *_

"Maybe it wasn't Earth after all." Alice continued as she thought on it further. "It could have been a different place, maybe."

He was growing frustrated by then. Clearly, his patient's indecisiveness and vague descriptions was getting to him. The pen clicked for the last time, and he slipped it into the pocket in the white coat.

"Well," he began, calming his frustration. "Perhaps we can continue this when you're feeling a little clearer. It seems like your mind is mixing images up, and is trying to make sense of them at the same time. Take it slow, Alice. Give your mind a chance to adjust again to reality. I'll come back tomorrow."

He stood, Alice then noticing how tall he actually was. He towered over her, nodded his head, and made his way out the door, ducking his head as he did so. Alice waited, and listened as the locks were turned on her door from the outside. She sat in the uncomfortable metal chair, and brought her legs up against her, tucking her knees underneath her chin as she thought.

There was no definable reason why she refused to describe the man in her dreams to the white coat. It seemed too personal somehow. No. Personal wasn't the word. She simply had the feeling that it generally wasn't any of his business, and he had no right to know the man as she knew him. In truth, she could describe him in every detail, she knew him so well. She could see him in her dreams almost every night.

He had large, round brown eyes that held an endless depth in them. His hair was brown, and all over the place. His mouth was expressive, and when he smiled it looked like the grin of a ten year old boy. Alice only wished that she knew who he was. He seemed so familiar, yet she had to continually remind herself that he was a stranger, and worse yet, he wasn't real.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

She had never felt so trapped. Well, she couldn't remember feeling as trapped as she did then, but that didn't count for much. Her memory wasn't reliable anymore. She couldn't even remember being checked in to that place. It was as though her life began in that tiny white room, and was bound to end there because of her stubborn refusal to cooperate with the doctors. She had no reason to be so uncooperative, it simply felt strange to blindly answer questions put to her by strangers. Very tall strangers. The low gravity on this planet must be the reason why everyone seemed so tall.

The only thing Alice could be grateful for in that dismal, depressing place was the little window in the wall, just above her bed. She would kneel on the mattress and peer outside for long periods of time during the day when she had nothing to do, which was most of the time.

She had asked for a pen or a pencil and some paper so she could give in to this strange urge she had to write, but they wouldn't allow her any objects that she could potentially use to harm herself. Despite her reasoning that she wasn't suicidal, they still wouldn't allow it.

Alice moved off of the chair, and onto her little flimsy bed. She knelt down upon it, and peered in between the white painted bars through the window. Her room was high above the ground. It looked as though she was at least five flights up.

The outside looked almost as white as her room. Everything was covered in snow and ice, from the mountains in the distance, to the grounds around the hospital. But unlike her room, it was a breathtaking sight. The binary stars remained close to the horizon, one higher in the sky than the other. But they were so far away, their light was soft as it hit the planet, and allowed for other stars in the sky to be seen as well. The sight reminded Alice of a rich, clear sunset on Earth - the planet that wasn't real.

She rested her forehead against the cold metal of the bars, and heaved a sigh. She remembered so much. Her memories stretched back to her childhood, as anyone's do. The only difference was that she knew those memories were purely fantasy. Whether she understood them or not, they were much too fantastic. She only wished that she could remember some of her life on Sultra Five as the doctor told her. They were still in the system. Was Sultra Five like this place at all? Far enough away from its two suns that it snowed all year round, and that the stars in the sky could be seen even during the day? There were no answers.

Alice took one more hungry glance out of her window, and lie down on the bed. Perhaps she would fall asleep again, and see more of that man - that world which seemed so real and colorful. Perhaps it was only that way to her because she knew she was happy there, and in turn, that's why she longed to go back whenever she woke up.  
* * *

_Flerida was so much like what the Doctor had told me, but ten times better! We stepped out of the TARDIS and my nose was instantly accosted by fragrances of countless varieties. At once, I believed that my allergies would kick into overdrive, and I'd begin sneezing violently and be forced to retreat back into the TARDIS. But nothing happened. The scents were gentle, almost as though they were aware of my sensitivity to them, and they lowered their potency so that I was able to process them. My eyes were having enough trouble taking in everything anyway._

_It was as though the Doctor had led me into a fantasy novel. The color saturation was more defined and detailed than I had ever seen before. And the variety was staggering! We had landed in the middle of what looked like an enormous garden. When I looked back, the TARDIS looked more like a shed, the plants around it already began clinging to it, wrapping their stems and leaves around it as though they were embracing it._

_The Doctor grinned at me, put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and began to mosey along with me next to him, staring in wonderment and awe at the life in front of me. It seemed larger than a garden, perhaps a field. The plants grew about as tall as corn stalks, blocking us and the path we were on from view._

_There were flowers with petals of every color I could imagine. Some were huge, taller than the Doctor, others were shorter, only coming up to my waist. I saw some flowers that looked as though they could have belonged on Earth. There was a bunch of crimson and pink buds that looked close to roses, with their luxurious petals wrapped around each other coming closer and closer to the center. But, when I bent down to smell one, it reacted to my presence on its own. Opening up it's petals into fullest bloom, it reached up to me, until the petals touched my nose._

_I sprang backwards in surprise, but the Doctor laughed._

"_You'll find a lot of them do that," he said. "Nothing to worry about. They just want to get to know you better. They feed on different things, the flowers here. Some feed on attention alone. And those are the ones you want to be careful of. They'll wrap themselves around you, and squeeze the life out of you if you get too close."_

"_This is just…magical," I said breathlessly, smiling at him. "Thank you."_

_I bent over the rose-like flower again, and inhaled as it opened up to me, brushing my cheeks with its petals. As I inhaled, I could hear whispering in my ears, a soft, comforting sort of voice, but the words weren't distinguishable._

_I stood up again, and stared at the Doctor._

"_It said something to me," I exclaimed._

"_Really?" he said, looking curiously at me._

"_Yeah! Just now, but I couldn't understand it."_

_The Doctor stepped forward, and bent down over the flower._

"_Alice."_

_I turned, looking behind me, but saw nothing. It had been a distinct voice calling to me, but there was no one there.  
_

"_Alice, can you hear me?"_

_I studied the thick foliage in front of me, seeing no one. The voice seemed so familiar._

"_Alice, I'm right here, come a little closer. I've missed you pumpkin."_

_I started, and without thinking, I leaped off of the path into the bunch of flowers. The Doctor's calls for me were muffled as the thoughts buzzed in my head. Only one person in the entire universe called me 'pumpkin', and that was Daddy._

_But he was dead. I watched him die._

"_A little closer, Alice. There's a good girl!"_

"_Dad!" I called. "Where are you?"_

"_I'm here, just a little more now," he sounded as excited as I felt._

_The bunches of foliage thinned, and I came upon another narrow path through the enormous garden. There, standing in the path was my Dad, who was dead. But there he was! Standing in front of me, alive and smiling! Perhaps this planet held more mysteries than the Doctor let on._

"_Daddy?"_

"_It's me pumpkin," he said, reaching out to me. "Come, come and see me."_

_I blinked the moisture out of my eyes, and stepped towards him, stretching my hand out to him. As I touched him, a strange sensation came over me. My mind went blank, and I suddenly felt very light headed. I couldn't remain standing, and collapsed onto the ground._

"_She is ours," a strange sort of voice said over me as I hit the ground and drifted away._

"_Transport now!" the voice said._

_A noise, then silence, and then…darkness._


End file.
